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09 March 2019

Kibermanis sets start and track record in Whistler on his way to 4man bobsleigh gold

Olympic Champion Friedrich second ahead of Kripps at halfway point

Whistler (RWH) At the halfway point in the BMW IBSF World Championships 2019 in Whistler (CAN), bobsleigh pilot Oskars Kibermanis of Latvia is well on his way to a gold medal in 4-man bobsleigh. The race for a medal promises to be a thrilling ride: After two out of four runs, a mere fourth tenths of a second separate the top six.

With their first run of 50.05 seconds, Oskars Kibermanis, Matiss Miknis, Arvis Vilkaste and Janis Strenga broke the current track record by more than half a second. The second run saw them score the start record (now 4.69 seconds). The previous record had been set by pilot André Lange (GER) and his crew at their 2010 Olympic silver medal race.

Alongside teammates Candy Bauer, Martin Grothkopp and Thorsten Margis, Olympic Champion and World Championship title defender Francesco Friedrich heads into the second day of the World Championships (Saturday, 9 March, 5pm local time / Sunday, 10 March, 2am CET) in second place (0.04 seconds behind). Local hero Justin Kripps, with Ryan Sommer, Cameron Stones and Ben Coakwell (CAN, 0.11 seconds behind) is currently third.

Benjamin Maier, Kilian Walch, Markus Sammer and Danut Moldovan (AUT) will head into the third race of the World Championships in fourth position. Russia's Maxim Andrianov, together with Aleksey Zaytsev, Vasiliy Kondratenko and Ruslan Samitov holds fifth place ahead of Michael Vogt and his team, Alain Knuser, Simon Friedli and Sandro Michel (SUI).

Having taken joint Olympic silver at the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, the teams headed up by Nico Walther (GER) and Yunjong Won (KOR) are currently seventh and eighth in the results table.

At the halfway point of the BMW IBSF World Championships 2019, Johannes Lochner (GER) - 2017 joint World Champion with Francesco Friedrich in 4-man bobsleigh - secured ninth position.